Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Do patients want to be informed? A study of consent for cardiac catheterisation.
  1. A G Fraser

    Abstract

    One hundred and four patients were asked to recall what they had been told before they gave consent for cardiac catheterisation to be performed. Of these, 14% had received no explanation, 24% had not been warned to expect specific symptoms or side effects, 40% had been told that complications were possible, and 26% had been warned that there was a risk of death. Most patients did not know about these risks, and two thirds would not have wanted to be told about them. Doctors should neither insist on gaining fully informed consent from anxious patients nor deny detailed information to inquiring ones.

    Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.